Located in Siberia, Laka Baikal is the largest freshwater lake on the planet that contains approximately 20 percent of the Earth’s freshwater. Apart from being the oldest lake in the world at over 25 million years old, Lake Baikal is also home to over two thousand varieties of flora and fauna, of which almost 1,600 are endemic to the lake. The water of Lake Baikal is renowned for being some of the clearest in the world. When the lake freezes during the winter, an amazing phenomena takes place: large shards of transparent ice form on the surface of the lake, giving the amazing appearance of turquoise ice.

George R.R. Martin, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, and other cast and crew of Game of Thrones have faced the winds of winter – or anyway, a bucket of ice water – with the popular charity challenge. HBO’s Game of Thrones gives fans chills in every episode. But as the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS research has exploded across the internet, the cast and crew of the shocking show gave themselves goosebumps as they stepped up to get soaked.

Participants in the Grelka Fest at the Sheregesh resort in Tashtagolsky District of Kemerovo Oblast, Russia on April 22, 2017. Russian girls marked the end of the ski season with a record-breaking bikini ski festival at Siberia’s top winter resort, Sheregesh. Some 1,498 skiers and snowboarders undressed to impress in the annual event as they took to the pistes under blues skies and sunshine in a bracing temperature of just 5°C. (Photo by Grelka Fest/The Siberian Times)

With the humpback calving season drawing to a close, here’s a look at some of Rita Kluge’s distinctive marine photos from the south Pacific. The Sydney-based photographer fell in love with whales after witnessing southern rights from the New South Wales coastline as they travelled to and from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic. She has since been to Tonga, where humpbacks breed and calf in winter months, to photograph them in the water. (Photo by Rita Kluge/The Guardian)

Australian Aboriginal hunter Marcus Gaykamangu of the Yolngu people, carries an Australian native lizard called a goanna over his shoulder as he walks away from a billabong near the “out station” of Yathalamarra, located on the outksirts of the community of Ramingining in East Arnhem Land November 22, 2014. (Photo by David Gray/Reuters)

A house and garden is illuminated ahead of Christmas in Olching near Munich December 11, 2014. The house is decorated with more than 30,000 lights. Every year hundreds of houses across Germany are decorated by their owners with lights ahead of Christmas. (Photo by Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

Female porters carry a holy woman belonging to the Jain community through a street to collect food from local residents living in nearby areas, during early morning in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad December 19, 2014. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Children try to walk through a flooded street at Kampung Melayu residential area in Jakarta, December 23, 2014. Torrential rains that have continued in Indonesia in recent days have widened the number of flooded areas that include Jakarta and Bandung, a local newspaper said on Tuesday. (Photo by Reuters/Beawiharta)